Foundation trainees are central to our work in the ICCU and the unit is an ideal place for you gain generic knowledge and compentencies. Your attachment to the ICCU follows a progression as described below:

Delivering the Curriculum

Your particular educational needs will be discussed during your initial meeting with your clinical supervisor, but we are ideally placed for you to work towards your Foundation Professional Capabilities. The changes to the curriculum introduced in August 2016 are significant in terms of the syllabus and the way you are assessed - please read the curriculum so you know what's required, particularly if are a current F2 doctor.​

Clinical and Educational Supervision

As a minimum, you will formally meet with your clinical supervisor when you first start with us, and again at the end of your block. These meetings must be recorded in your portfolio. You will also continue to meet with your educational supervisor, having meetings at the beginning and end of your attachment. If critical care is your last post in F1 or F2, the meeting will be recorded as an 'ES end of year report' rather than an 'ES end of placement report'.

Both your clinical and educational supervisor will be checking your progress towards a successful ARCP. You should arrange to meet with your clinical supervisor midway through your block to initiate feedback from the placement supervision group via your portfolio. (Click here for the horus user guide for the PSG) and see below for more information. You will also receive a consultant assessment (with input from all ICCU consultants) which will be very useful evidence not just for your ARCP but to map against the professional capabilities.

As a useful aid to both yourself and your clinical and educational supervisors here are the local summary of evidence required for a successful ARCP for the F1 and F2 year.

We also understand the need for confidential and unbiased career guidance during foundation training, which we will happily provide. Coaching is also available for you to take advantage of.

MDT feedback

Because teamwork is so central to critical care, we will ask you to complete EITHER a TAB OR a PSG but NOT both. Because you will receive a consultant assessment, your TAB/PSG should only include the minimum number of consultants (i.e. 2). ​

Within any placement, an individual healthcare professional is unlikely to build up a coherent picture of the overall performance of an individual foundation doctor. Whenever possible, the named clinical supervisor will seek information from senior healthcare professionals who will work with the foundation doctor during the placement. These colleagues will function as a placement supervision group, commenting on whether the foundation doctor's clinical and professional practice is expected to meet or exceed the minimum levels performance required for sign off in each of the 20 foundation professional capabilities at the end of the year.The named clinical supervisor nominates the members of the PSG and is responsible for identifying them to the foundation doctor. The makeup of the placement supervision group will vary depending on the placement but is likely to include:

Doctors more senior than F2, including at least one consultant or GP principal

Senior nurses (band 5 or above)

Ward pharmacists

Allied health professionals ​

The placement supervision group (PSG) members' observations and feedback will inform the clinical supervisor's end of placement report. Not every placement will have a PSG but there should be one in place for most ward-based specialties. During certain placements, the foundation doctor will only work with one or two doctors. In these cases the pool of health care professionals making the assessment of performance will be smaller, the degree of interaction and number of interactions between foundation doctor and trainer will be expected to be greater.The PSG will help the clinical supervisor form a balanced judgement of a doctor's performance, based on observation of the latter in the workplace and their engagement in the educational process. Such an approach will prevent any individual having undue influence over a doctor's progression.The PSG is responsible for:

Observing the foundation doctor's practice in the workplace

Undertaking and facilitating supervised learning events (SLEs)

Providing contemporaneous feedback on practice to the foundation doctor

Providing structured feedback to the clinical supervisor

Raising concerns immediately if unsatisfactory performance by the foundation doctor has been identified.

The feedback from members of the PSG should indicate whether, in their opinion, the doctor's clinical and professional practice is expected to meet or exceed the minimum levels of performance required in order to allow sign off of each foundation professional capability by the end of the year of training.

Supervised Learning Events

With regards supervised learning events the following is the minimum required during a 4 month block. You will have the opportunity to gather far more evidence and feedback on the ICCU, we suggest therefore that this should very much be seen as an absolute minimum:

2 Mini CEX

1 DOPS (unless 3 mini CEX)

2 CBD

1 Developing the Clinical Teacher (unless completed elsewhere)

Please remember also that you need to write a PDP and you should be writing down some reflection as you go rather than in the week before the ARCP.

Foundation Teaching and the Professionalism Programme

We are entirely supportive of your attendance at these events. You should provide your clinical supervisor with the dates so that rota arrangements can be made. Even if we don't manage to arrange cover, you should attend regardless. Attendance at these days will be included in your working hours.

Presenting Patients on the Ward Round

Presenting ICCU patients can seem a bit daunting as they are by nature complex. For information and a template to guide you click here.

Finally....

Coming to work in a critical care unit will seem odd whichever stage of foundation training you arrive. Please remember however that:​

We don't expect you to know everything (hardy anything in fact!)

You will be more closely supervised and supported than you ever have been. This may seem a bit stifling if you're used to being 'left to cope' but we make no apology for that. Our patients deserve better and you deserve to learn.

Despite it all seeming a bit odd at first you are a hugely valued team member. You do have useful skills and experience, it might just take you a while to realise they can be applied in a critical care unit.

The patients, families, diseases etc. are the same as in the rest of the hospital. We are seeing one end of the spectrum, but it's still medicine as you know it.

You will enjoy your time with us.

This site is written for healthcare professionals. Nothing on it constitutes medical advice, and opinions expressed are those of the authors.